Apple today announced the release of OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes iCloud integration, the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring and Game Center. It's available as an upgrade from Lion or Snow Leopard for $19.99.

"People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad."

With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion includes:

- iCloud integration, for easy set up of your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes, and keeping everything, including iWork documents, up to date across all your devices.

- The all new Messages app, which replaces iChat and brings iMessage to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or another Mac.

- Notification Center, which streamlines the presentation of notifications and provides easy access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party app.

- System-wide Sharing, to make it easy to share links, photos, videos and other files quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo.

- Facebook integration, so you can post photos, links and comments with locations right from your apps, automatically add your Facebook friends to your Contacts, and even update your Facebook status from within Notification Center.

- Dictation, which allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer.

- AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what's on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay.

- Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Additional features in Mountain Lion include the revolutionary new Gatekeeper, which makes downloading software from the Internet safer; Power Nap, which automatically updates your apps and system while your Mac is asleep; and a faster Safari browser. New features for China include significantly improved text input, a new Chinese Dictionary, easy setup with popular email providers, Baidu search in Safari, and built-in sharing to Sina Weibo and popular video websites Youku and Tudou.

More information about Mountain Lion and its system requirements can be found here.

I am pretty impressed with ML so far. The notifications are pretty cool and Safari 6 is an absolute speed demon! Everything actually feels a little quicker. Time will only tell if it's from the fresh install and reboots though.

Loving the AirPlay mirroring. I also didn't realize that you could now set the entire system audio to output with AirPlay. I think that basically does away with the need for AirFoil. Which actually costs $5 more than Mountain Lion. I also like the Notification Center, Safari and iMessage. So needless to say, I'm rather pleased the update. It definitely think that it feels more polished than Lion. I do wish that Apple would tone down some of the skeumorphs though. That part is getting a little out of hand._________________2011 Mac mini with 8GB of RAM
2012 Mac mini Server with 16GB of RAM
46" Sony TV
24" HP LCD
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse
2 x 1TB MiniStacks
1TB MiniStack Max

It may not be revolutionary, but it's very good. I think it's well worth $20 dollars. The Airplay features also have me craving a new Apple TV all of a sudden. I didn't ever really feel that way before, but I do now. So here's my $100 dollars. I hate you Apple! Just shut up and take my money.

I downloaded it without problem and the installation took under 40 minutes. I notice a few nice small improvements - faster startup time, faster Safari, and some nice new desktop backgrounds. I may now turn from Firefox to Safari as my browser of choice. The Notes and Reminders apps might turn out to be useful; they look potentially interesting.

Did anyone submit a claim through Apple for an upgrade on a recently purchased computer? If so, how long did it take them to validate and email the code? I thought the validation would be quick, especially for hardware purchased directly from Apple - but I'm still waiting.

...at least it's not like the old days with Windows, where the request was done via mail and we had to wait for a disk.

I upgraded my MBP and my 2011 Mini to ML, both seem fine. I wonder if this will fix FaceTime, it was useless before with the crackly audio problem. Safari has never been faster though, however I still use Firefox. I need to find out all the other "improvements"._________________Mac Mini 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM 500GB HD
Macbook Pro 13 inch late October 2009 4GB Ram 160GB HD
iPhone 5 16GB
iPad Air 1

A small complaint, but I'm not crazy about the new dock. I think it's harder to tell which apps you have open now. Does anyone else here feel the same way?_________________2011 Mac mini with 8GB of RAM
2012 Mac mini Server with 16GB of RAM
46" Sony TV
24" HP LCD
Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse
2 x 1TB MiniStacks
1TB MiniStack Max